Precision M4400 Owner's Lounge

Help! I did something rather idiotic when flashing my BIOS. Since the laptop didn't restart into the BIOS flash program, and being rather impaired of reasoning ability due to lack of sleep, I held the power button for 4 seconds. Needless to say, it seems that the BIOS is corrupted - the laptop powers on and stays on but the screen is blank and nothing seems to happen. I can put a CD in the drive and it spins up, but I'm not sure if it reads it.
I couldn't find any specific information regarding BIOS recovery for the M4400. I did open a support ticket since it's in warranty - is the likely solution a replacement of the BIOS chip or even the motherboard?

Oh, and note to self: no more late night BIOS flashing. Sheesh.

 

Usually Business-Class Notebooks have 3 Bioses, one is active, one for beeing patched/updated and one which cant be deleted in case of emergency.
so that Notebooks are nearly indestructible. But im not sure how to get to that backups...

 

This is what tech support is for, unless yours is out of warranty at which point I hope someone around here knows what to do.

 

I personally found it quite annoying, and when they replaced my machine I asked for a downgrade to the 6-cell.

LET'S GO CAPS!

 

The M4400 that I ordered from the Outlet was delivered today. First impression is very positive. It feels like a very sturdy machine. Since it came from the Outlet, I was a little concerned with the condition but I'm happy to say that it looks pretty new. The groovy lid is a nice touch, looks better in person than it does in pictures. The RGBLED display is stunning, one of the most beautiful I've seen in a portable.

I'm in the process of running some stress tests on the QX9300 (2.53GHz Quad-Core); using Prime95 and running 4 threads, after 15 minutes all 4 cores reached 85C and down clocked to 1.6GHz. It's probably not meant for this type of stress testing and the down clock is exactly what should have happened but I'm thinking of laying some Arctic Silver on the core to see if it'll help with the temperature and allow it to run the stress test longer. (It was shipped with A12 BIOS which I haven't changed.) Any other QX9300 owners want to chime in?

 

yeh sort of annoying... u can override the downclocking, but in any case... not optimal ;]

 

Override via OS energy settings or BIOS?

 

New M4400 owner here, upgrading from an M65.

I've had it for nearly a week and man this is one awesome machine. The build quality is outstanding and the only issue from my outlet order were a couple of minor scratches on the lid. The RGD LED display is awesome-o and I couldn't be happier.

I have a question about internal WWAN though. I tried to order the internal card for Sprint (already have a current account and USB modem), but I couldn't find the option. I also tried to different chat support people in sales and they were useless. I know you can get it as an option on a new build, but where do I order this card by itself?

Is the 5720 that is for the Inspiron models one and the same? The compatibility thing on that product says no, but my brain is telling me that it is. I'm just trying to confirm before I place the order.


Thanks.

 

DogEarz, how's the backlight for your RDBLED? Mine bleeds at the top edge, bottom edge, and most noticeably, on the left and right edges. It's distracting on dark backgrounds or while watching movies. It'd be interesting to hear if yours exhibits similar bleeding behavior.

 

You know, I can't say there is any real significant bleeding. I have a fairly dark background on there now, but nothing really jumps out at me.

I have noticed some funky 'lighter' areas in the middle of the screen, upper third while booting, but they are not noticeable once I'm in to do work on the system.